Summary descriptions of the equipment are as follows: 



Sutron board: Modular circuit board that plugs into any Sutron tide 

 gauge station. Access is via telephone. If the gauge is at a remote 

 location, a cellular phone with land line simulator is required. 



Sphere reporter: Small external circuit connects to any Sutron tide 

 gauge via data port. Access is via telephone or marine radio. If the gauge 

 is at a remote location, a cellular phone with land line simulator is 

 required. The marine radio will provide a report automatically every 5 to 

 10 min on VHF Channel 13. The manufacturer is located in Australia, and 

 some difficulty was noted in provided changes in voice vocabulary; 

 however, the Sphere system appears to be very flexible. 



Dialogic Netware: Centralized personal computer (PC) is used. 

 Users call this PC to hear high quality stored speech. The PC 

 communicates with tide gauges via a separate phone or by data radio. This 

 alternative is more costly than either the Sutron board or Sphere reporter, 

 but higher speech quality, alerting capabilities, etc., can be built in. 

 Altering the messages requires recording new phrases in a studio and 

 installing them on the system. 



Voice Modem/UNIX: This is an evolution of the Dialogic Netware 

 system and is currently being actively developed at the Conrad Blucher 

 Institute (CBI) for its "Flowlnfo" systems. Users call a central PC to hear 

 high-quality digitized speech. The PC communicates with tide gauges via 

 a separate phone or by data radio. Changes to the messages are 

 conveniently made by editing text files. Such changes may be done 

 locally or remotely via secure dial-in modem. 



Recommendations and Costs 



At present, the following recommendations are made, but should be 

 reviewed and revised prior to implementation. To access a particular tide 

 gauge via telephone, a Sutron board is recommended. If radio reporting is 

 desired, a Sphere reporter would be installed. To provide voice reports to 

 telephone callers from gauges in a particular area, installation of a 

 centralized PC is recommended. Currently, CBI would use the Voice 



Chapter 4 Communications Alternatives 29 



